textproduct: Quad Cities

KEY MESSAGES

- Seasonally mild temperatures will persist through the end of the week.

- Chance (20-50%) for light rain and snow Thursday. Any snow accumulations (mainly north of I-80) look to be minor and mainly on grassy/elevated surfaces with little/no travel impacts.

- High confidence on continued above normal temperatures this weekend through much of next week. Lower confidence exists on precipitation potential.

SHORT TERM /THROUGH WEDNESDAY NIGHT/

Issued at 315 AM CST Tue Feb 10 2026

A cold front just entering the area early this morning will exit prior to mid morning. This will be followed by some increase in cloudiness today, more opaque at times particularly north of I-80. It will be cooler today from those highs of Monday with 850 hPa temperatures dropping 5-10c. However, despite the notable cooling aloft, deeper mixing to near 900 hPa (progged temps 0c to -1c north to 2c to 4c south by 21z) would support still seasonally mild PM temps mainly in the upper 30s to lower 40s north (mixing moist/dry adiabatically depending on cloud cover), with upper 40s to lower 50s south (mixing dry adiabatically and possibly super-adiabatically with more solar insolation). As the clouds go, so go the temperatures today. In addition, expect brisk north/northwest winds today with 20-30 kt winds atop the mixed layer supportive of gusts 25-35 mph.

Winds and clouds will gradually diminish through Wednesday as high pressure builds into the region. Lows tonight look to be mainly in the 20s, while highs on Wednesday should recover back mainly in the 40s with abundant sunshine and a dry ground.

LONG TERM /THURSDAY THROUGH MONDAY/

Issued at 315 AM CST Tue Feb 10 2026

On Thursday, a shortwave trough/clipper system is progged to dive southeastward from parts of ND/MN through the region in the afternoon and early evening. There is general agreement on this system shearing/weakening as it encounters confluent flow downstream. However, still a sufficient mid level fgen response in conjunction with the entrance region of an upper level jet may result in a rather narrow band of light precipitation shifting across the area on Thursday. Thermal profiles and top down saturation would appear to support a mix of rain and snow (AM). NBM probabilities from 01z/9th to 01z/10th for >0.1 inch of QPF have dropped from 40-50% west of the Miss River to now 20-25% mostly north of I-80, not surprising given the weakening trend noted. As a result, this should be a very light precipitation event and with marginal BL temperatures to start (around freezing at 12z) any minor accums would have to occur early to mid morning before melt occurs with daylight. Little to no travel impacts are expected with warm pavement temps aided by solar absorption and milder air, and light precip rates all leading to mainly wet roadways.

Beyond, confidence is high on above normal temperatures this weekend into much of next week. In fact, we are likely to see our warmest temperatures of this mild stretch next week as the medium range guidance is in good agreement on amplifying an upper ridge through the central CONUS early in the week, followed by west/southwest flow aloft ahead of a western trough. The peak of the warmth is looking like Monday and Tuesday where 2m temperature anomalies of +15 to +25F are being depicted. This would support highs in the 50s with some 60s possible!

While confidence is high on temperatures this weekend into early next week, confidence on precipitation potential is low. The latest deterministic runs of the ECMWF and GFS offer little phasing of the northern and southern streams, which results in a system crossing southern California late week passing well south of the area this weekend leading to a dry forecast. The ensemble means of both the GFS and ECMWF as well as their AI runs however show a little more interaction of the two streams. This results in a bit further northward track of the southern system leading to some precipitation potential swiping the area, particularly south. A closer look at the ensembles of GFS and ECMWF though show that a majority of the membership is well south on the track and dry for our region. The NBM while lowering a bit on PoPs for the weekend from previous runs, still appears quite generous and likely being influenced by the more northerly GEM/GEPS. But, looking further into the NBM precipitation accums really reinforces the uncertainty, with a difference of zero accumulation with the 25th and 50th percentiles to 0.5 inches with the 75th percentile. As a result, I have coordinated to blend in drier WPC PoPs, which leads to an overall reduction of around 20% Saturday and Sunday with the highest PoPs (around 40%) across portions of our southeast and just slight chance to dry conditions along and north of Hwy 30.

AVIATION /12Z TAFS THROUGH 12Z WEDNESDAY/

Issued at 535 AM CST Tue Feb 10 2026

Can't rule out a transitory bout of MVFR ceilings (1500-2500 ft agl) at DBQ and CID 15z-19z. However, most of the guidance keeps the stratus deck (currently over MN) just to the north of both terminals today. Latest NBM probabilities for MVFR ceilings are 20-40% at DBQ and CID. Therefore, too much uncertainty and low confidence to add to the TAF, but will need to monitor. For now, I continued mention of SCT MVFR bases at all sites with the cold advection. Winds will turn gusty of 20-30 kt from 310-350 degrees by mid morning and afternoon. The winds will gradually subside to 10 kt or less tonight with VFR conditions expected.

DVN WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

IA...None. IL...None. MO...None.